Tess clapped a hand to her mouth, then lowered her fingers. ‘No, I don’t. Oh, Albert, whatever shall we do?’

But Albert was already across the kitchen and beginning to descend the stairs. ‘We’ll see if there’s any possible means of entry,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Miss Foulks must have had a back door for stock deliveries, and so she could use the communal lavatory. I wouldn’t go breaking the new window or the door in the front of the property, but if there’s a window round the back . . .’

‘There is,’ Tess said, pointing as they approached the wall. Immediately the yowling stopped. It was dark in the yard, the only light coming from the Williamses’ flat above their heads, but when Tess asked Albert if he thought the animal might have escaped of its own accord he shook his head. ‘It’s listening,’ he told her. ‘It knows there are good people and bad, and it wants to be quite certain that we’re the good sort before it reveals its hiding place by crying for help again.’ He pointed to another door. ‘Does that lead into the shop?’

‘It must do, but I can’t see any way of getting in,’ Tess said. ‘I wonder if we should get in touch with the police? I remember being told once that scuffers have the names of all key holders – people who can be contacted at night if the owner of the premises is not available. Do you think we ought to . . .’

But Albert was staring at the small window which was probably the only means by which daylight entered the millinery shop’s stockroom. Then he looked at Tess, a look so calculating that she guessed he was about to suggest something uncomfortable. ‘I believe this window isn’t latched,’ he said. ‘If I gave you a bunk up do you think you could open it? And then wriggle through? Once you’re inside you can unlock the door, because I’d put money on the fact that the key will be hanging beside the lock.’

‘Right,’ Tess said. ‘Up we go!’

Five minutes later she had managed to open the window and was wriggling through it, commenting to Albert that she just wished she knew what she was going to land on, when a voice spoke behind them. ‘What have we here? Midnight goings-on? Don’t you know the shop’s empty? You ain’t likely to find anything but a coupla musty old hats which Miss Foulks couldn’t sell.’

The beam of the torch directed straight into his eyes made Albert blink, and caused the torch-holder to say in a surprised tone: ‘Well, if it ain’t Mr Payne! Wharron earth are you doin’, Mr Payne, sir? And don’t tell me you’ve took to house-breaking, because I shan’t believe you.’ The torch beam shifted to Tess’s nether regions, for she was still half in and half out of the window. ‘And who’s your young friend?’ His voice changed. ‘Nice knickers house-breakers wear these days!’